This paper investigates the performance of holistic and analytic scoring rubrics in the context of EFL writing. Specifically, the paper compares EFL students' scores on a writing task using holistic and analytic scoring rubrics. The data for the study was collected from 30 participants attending an English undergraduate program in a Yemeni university. The authors used psychometric statistics (Inter-rater Agreement, Intra-Class Correlation, t-test and ANOVA) to compare the performance of the students on the two rubrics in accurately diagnosing students' strengths and weaknesses and placing them along a continuum of foreign language writing proficiency. The raters of the writing samples included three experienced instructors working at the same department. The results of correlating the students and raters' holistic and analytic scores and of examining the variations among the correlations provide evidence for the reliability and validity of both rubrics. Analytic scoring rubrics, however, placed the examinees along a more clearly defined scale of writing ability, and are, therefore, more reliable than holistic scoring rubric instruments for evaluating EFL writing for achievement purposes than holistic scoring rubric.

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The present study investigates the effect of gender representation in Saudi Arabian school curricula on children's value systems and social character. In particular, the study examines gender distribution in first-grade school textbooks in Saudi Arabia where schooling, and education at large, is single-sex throughout. The data for the study is constituted by six textbooks prescribed for the first school semester at boys' and girls' schools. The study attempts a content analysis of the texts and illustrations in these textbooks in order to examine the representation, indeed construction, for the children of society and the stereotypical social roles of its members. Analysis reveals a gendered representation. Women suffer low visual and verbal visibility, and are almost completely denied occupations. Moreover, social activity is segregated by gender, with women appearing mostly in indoor activities and men in outdoor activities. The paper concludes by revisiting these findings against the backcloth of the idiosyncratic religious and cultural character of the Saudi society in which gender differences are normalized.